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For countless little girls, their dad is the first man in their lives they learn to love & trust. He’s the person who is supposed to keep them safe, checking under their bed for monsters, holding their hand when they’re scared. Before a daughter is old enough to understand relationships, danger, manipulation or betrayal, her father can help shape her earliest understanding of what safety & security feels like & what they deserve from a partner when the time comes.
For 9-year-old Faith Battaglia & her 6-year-old sister Liberty, their father, John Battaglia, took that trust & used it against them. The man who was supposed to protect his little girls from the worst thing in the world became the worst thing that ever happened to them.
In May 2001, 9-year-old Mary Faith Battaglia, who went by Faith, was a straight-A student in 3rd grade at Bradfield Elementary in Dallas, Texas. She was an accomplished violinist who also had her blue belt in karate. When her beloved grandfather passed away from cancer, she vowed to one day find a cure. After her death, one of her best friends told her mom, The world has lost a great scientist.
She was a thoughtful & ambitious young girl, who always cared deeply for others. On the day she died, she set up a lemonade stand with a sign that read, Free Lemonade for Joggers, since she knew they wouldn’t be carrying money & she wanted to make sure they were hydrated.
Faith’s younger sister, 6-year-old Liberty Mae Battaglia, was getting ready to graduate kindergarten at Bradfield Elementary in May 2001. Although she was a petite, slender little girl who earned the nickname French Fry, her spirit was bigger than life. Like her older sister, Liberty was also an accomplished violinist. She was also a third year ballerina who aspired to one day become a Prima Ballerina.
Sadly, Liberty & Faith’s father, John Battaglia, was a violent man with a long history of domestic violence against his former wives, including their mother, Mary Jean Pearl.
Mary Jean & John were married in 1991 & during their nine-year marriage, they had two daughters together, Faith, who was born in January 1992 & Liberty, who was born three years later in January 1995.
John also had a third daughter, Christie, from his first marriage to Michelle Ghetti, who also experienced domestic abuse at his hands.
From the outside, it appeared that John & Mary Jean had a life that was as picture-perfect as their home as they lived in one of Dallas’ wealthiest neighborhoods. Mary Jean, who came from a wealthy family, worked as an antiques dealer while John was an accountant. According to Mary Jean, her husband was someone that everybody loved since he could be charming, giving, fun & wonderful.
However, like a coin, John had two sides. Before they were married, although he told Mary Jean that he’d gotten into an argument with his ex-wife, he downplayed the incident, failing to mention that he’d broken her nose. He’d also brutally beat & kicked Michelle in front of Christie’s elementary school.
The first time Mary Jean ever got a glimpse of her husband’s dark side was on their wedding night when he snapped at her about something. Slowly but steadily, the verbal abuse became more & more frequent until he had called her every name in the book.
Although he was terrible to her, Mary Jean admitted that he was a doting father who never so much as raised his voice at their girls let alone touched them physically.
The verbal abuse continued throughout their marriage, but for years, she endured a private hell in an attempt to keep the family together. It made it that much more difficult & confusing that he also had the side that was fun & loving.
Unable to take the escalating verbal abuse & threats any longer, in January 1999, Mary Jean had had enough so she separated from him & filed for divorce, fearing that he would eventually become physically violent.
While living apart, but before the divorce was final, John & his daughter Christie came over to Mary Jean’s house to pick Faith & Liberty up for church on Christmas morning in 1999. After he became angry with Mary Jean during their interaction, he attacked her in front of his three daughters.
As he continued to punch her, pull her hair, push her to the floor & kick her, the girls were sobbing & begging him to stop. As soon as he left, she called 911. Officers found her black & blue behind her head with a puncture wound to her heel as well as bruising to various parts of her body.
John was convicted of assault & placed on two years’ probation for the attack.
Their divorce was finalized eight months later in August 2000. A protective order was issued at that time that prohibited John from committing family violence against Mary Jean & their daughters as well as from stalking, threatening or harassing them. It also prohibited him from possessing a firearm.
During Easter 2001, when Mary Jean gave Christie a $50 gift for the holiday, John became irate. He called her, leaving her an angry phone message that accused her of screwing his daughter out of her college fund, calling her a f**king pig. Since harassment was a violation of his probation, Mary Jean reported him to his probation officer which resulted in a warrant being issued for his arrest.
A little more than two weeks later, when John learned about this warrant on May 2, 2001, he was assured by a police officer that the warrant wouldn’t be executed in front of his daughters. He was told that he could make arrangements with his lawyer to calmly turn himself in.
Despite his violent history, John maintained periodic visitation rights with Faith & Liberty while they lived full-time with their mom in Highland Park just outside of Dallas. Since Mary Jean was terrified of her ex-husband, she limited contact with him as much as possible.
As required by their visitation schedule, every Wednesday, she dropped her girls off with John so he could take them to dinner before returning them back to their mom.
On Wednesday, May 2, 2001, the same day he was notified about the warrant for his arrest, Mary Jean dropped her girls off with John at their agreed upon meeting spot at Highland Village Park in Dallas. After she made sure they had gotten safely into his car, she drove over to her friend Melissa’s house.
John planned to bring the girls back to Melissa’s when they were done with dinner.
After she pulled away, he contacted his former mother-in-law, Dorrace Pearle, telling her that he needed to reach Mary Jean to ask her a question.
As Mary Jean was pulling into Melissa’s driveway, her mom relayed the message so when she got inside, she called John back at about 7:30 pm, about 30 minutes since she’d dropped the girls off with him.
Rather than taking their daughters out for dinner as planned, John had taken them back to the Adam Hats Lofts in Dallas where he was renting a studio apartment. When he answered the phone, he put the call on speaker & Mary Jean could hear him tell Faith, ask her. This was when she heard her older daughter ask, Mommy, why do you want Daddy to go to jail?
As she began pleading with her ex, begging him not to involve the girls in their dispute, she heard Faith cry out, No, Daddy, please don’t do it! These tragically became her daughter’s last words.
Not knowing what was happening, Mary Jean began screaming for her girls to run for the door when she heard gunshots as well as the sound of John’s voice saying, Merry f**king Christmas!
As more gunshots rang out, Mary Jean hung up & frantically dialed 911 as she ran toward her car to rush to John’s apartment.
After police officers broke into his fourth floor apartment, they found the girls’ bodies surrounded in a pool of blood amid half-unpacked boxes as well as a number of guns & rifles. The .45-caliber handgun that he used to kill both of the children was found near the kitchen phone.
While Faith’s body lay near the phone in the kitchen, Liberty was lying face down 10-15 feet from the front door.
Faith had been shot execution-style while she stood in the kitchen on the phone with her mom, begging her dad for her life. As she lay bleeding to death from two mortal wounds, one to her lungs & another that severed her spinal cord & ruptured her aorta, her father finished her off with a third & final shot below her ear to the back of her head that was immediately fatal.
While her big sister was being murdered by their father, 6-year-old Liberty had jumped off the couch & ran her little 38 pound body to the front door in hopes of escaping. On her way, her father opened fire, grazing the top of her head with a bullet & hitting her once in the arm, which caused her to go down. She was shot a total of five times, the last shot to the back of her head after he picked up a second hand gun.
According to witness Douglas Cartmel, he saw John leaving the complex in a black extended-cab pickup truck before Mary Jean arrived in absolute hysterics.
After murdering his daughters, John & his girlfriend went to a bar & then to a tattoo parlor where he got two large red roses linking on his left bicep to commemorate Faith & Liberty.
Shortly after 1 am, Dallas police officers were patrolling the area several blocks from John’s apartment around the nightclubs in the Deep Ellum entertainment district when they spotted a truck that matched his. It took four officers to subdue him at the tattoo parlor & during the struggle, he received a black eye. While a fully loaded revolver was found in his truck, more than a dozen firearms were recovered from his apartment.
When Mary Jean went back home one day after her daughters’ murders, she realized that John had left a message on his daughter’s answering machine immediately following their deaths: Goodnight my little babies. I hope you’re resting in a different place. I love you. I wish that you had nothing to do with your mother. She was evil, vicious, stupid. You will be free of her. I love you very dearly. You were very brave girls. Very brave. Liberty, you were oh so brave. I love you so much. Bye.
45-year-old John Battaglia was booked into Lew Sterrett Justice Center on two counts of capital murder. His trial began the following year on April 22, 2002,
The defense, who asked the jury to sentence their client to life in prison rather than death, called forensic psychiatrist Dr. Judy Stonedale to the stand. She testified that John had suffered from bipolar disorder since his mid-to-late twenties. Although he knew what he was doing during the crime, she believed he was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time. When another forensic psychiatrist, who had also diagnosed John with bipolar disorder was cross-examined, he agreed that John knew what he was doing when he murdered his children.
A third forensic psychiatrist who testified on behalf of the State, Dr. Richard Coons, concluded that John had killed his kids in an act of anger & revenge in order to punish Mary Jean. He concluded that he had a mild form of bipolar disorder as well as antisocial personality disorder which is why he rationalized & blamed others for his actions.
Evidence indicated that he had planned the murders in advance, manipulating the situation so that his ex-wife was forced to helplessly listen on the phone while her daughters were murdered.
On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, after four days of testimony in the trial’s punishment phase, a Dallas County jury deliberated for 6 ½ hours & found John Battaglia guilty of capital murder.
As the verdict was read, the 46-year-old showed no reaction, nor did he when Mary Jean read an emotional statement, saying she wished him to burn in hell forever. She went on to say, You are one of the most heinous murderers of modern time. Hitler didn’t kill his own children.
According to Mary Jean, her daughters had been apprehensive about seeing their father on the evening they were murdered. Before they left to meet up with him, she had found 6-year-old Liberty hiding under her bed, a time when Mary Jean had assured her that everything would be okay. Although she knew her ex was capable of violence, she never fathomed that he would turn his rage on his little girls.
In 2014, John told a media outlet that his daughters were his best little friends & the nicest little kids, telling them that he had photos of them all around his prison cell. He went on to say that he didn’t feel like he killed them & he was a little bit blank about what happened.
During his years on death row, John’s oldest daughter, Christie, visited him once. She went on to work as an event planner in Baton Rouge while also volunteering with domestic violence victims.
After his state & federal appeals were denied, his execution date was set for March 2016. Only hours before his scheduled death, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals stopped the execution to allow John to develop a claim that he was incompetent for execution.
According to the Supreme Court, prisoners can be executed if they’re aware that the death penalty is to be carried out & they have a rational understanding of why they’re facing that punishment.
After an evidentiary hearing was held six months later in November 2016, although three out of four psychologists who examined him said he was unfit for execution, the court found him competent. The state judge & the state appeals court described him as a highly intelligent, competent person who was not mentally ill & merly faking mental illness to avoid execution. They went on to say that he had a master’s degree & was only concocting a deliberate ploy or ruse to avoid his execution.
Testimony discussed that he’d utilized the prison library to research capital case rulings on mental competence. During a phone call with his father, he spoke of the chess game of avoiding execution.
On October 31, 2017, his death warrant was signed & a new execution date was set for February 1, 2018. On the morning of his execution, his legal team submitted a new appeal, indicating that the last two executions were botched using expired & relabled drugs. John’s execution would be the third that year, all of which happened in Texas, & they argued that the previous two were torturous & the state planned to use the same drugs on their client.
When Houston serial killer Anthony Shore was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital on January 18, he complained that it burned. When William Rayford was executed only days previously, he attempted to raise his body before he shook, grimaced & jerked his head on the gurney multiple times.
Pentobarbital is a drug that slows down the electrical activity of the brain & nerve cells. It’s used in humans as well as animals, mostly for euthanasia in a veterinary setting. For humans, it’s mainly used in the operating room as well as intensive care units to treat uncontrolled brain swelling & seizures.
When injected, the drug goes to the heart & is pumped throughout the body, quickly reaching the brain tissue. Since it affects nerve cells that control the entire body, including the heart & lungs, when a lethal dose is administered, everything slows down until the heart ceases to beat & breathing stops.
Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark denied that there were issues in the previous two executions that year, saying that the two men lost consciousness immediately after being injected & were pronounced dead thirteen minutes later.
John’s appeal was unsuccessful with the final denial coming in at 9 pm that night.
As Mary Jean & other witnesses walked into the death chamber viewing area, 62-year-old John smiled. When the warden asked if he had any last words, he said that he didn’t, but then changed his mind. As he looked & smiled in his ex-wife’s direction, he said, Well, hi, Mary Jean. I’ll see y’all later. Bye. He then told the warden, Go ahead, please.
He never once expressed remorse for killing his daughters, all the while blaming Mary Jean for his actions.
After he was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital at 9:18 pm, he closed his eyes & looked directly up. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes, lifted his head & said, Am I still alive? As the powerful sedative began to take effect, he said, Oh, I feel it. He gasped twice & then began to snore. Within a few seconds, all movement ceased & his time of death was at 9:40 pm, 22 minutes after the lethal dose began.
As Mary Jean turned from the room, she said, I’ve seen enough of him.
The murders of 9-year-old Faith & 6-year-old Liberty Battaglia are nearly impossible to comprehend, not only because two innocent little girls lost their lives, but because of who was responsible for taking them. A father should be one of the safest people in a child’s world, someone they can trust without hesitation, someone who protects them from the worst things that can happen.
Instead, John Battaglia took that trust & destroyed it. Liberty & Faith had nothing to do with the anger, resentment or conflict between their parents. They were children & yet they were weaponized as a way to cause unimaginable pain to their mother.
He denied Faith & Liberty everything they should have had – birthdays, graduations, friendships & everything that makes up a life. They were sisters, daughters & two little girls who deserved to grow up surrounded by people who loved, protected & made them feel safe.
References:
- POMC: Liberty Mae Battaglia 6 years old
- POMC: Mary Faith Battaglia “Faith” 9 years old
- Murderpedia: John David Battaglia
- FindLaw: John David Battaglia v. the State of Texas
- CBS News: Dallas man smiles before being executed for killing two daughters while mother listened
- CBS News: Man kills his two kids as revenge against ex
- The Texas Tribune: John Battaglia executed for killing his daughters despite late appeals
- Npr Network: Secret sedative: How Missouri uses pentobarbital in executions
- The Next to Die: John David Battaglia
- UNILAD: Heartbreaking final words mom heard from daughters over phone before dad murdered them
- Fox News: Texas dad who killed daughters while on phone with estranged wife taunts her at execution
- Wikipedia: John Battaglia
- Medium: “No, Daddy don’t!” – The tragic story of John David Battaglia & the murder of his daughters
- Houston Public Media: Update: Dallas man executed for killing daughters while mom listened
